Communication and Listening

Although I like to think of myself as a good listener, I know at times I am a very impatient person and can be somewhat of a bad one. Not everyone can be good listeners all the time, with everything going on in our lives sometimes we just need to nod our heads at the non important things or answer “yes” without even knowing what were answering to. To be honest I probably use all of the negative listening types daily.
When I read the first type of listening “selective” I immediately thought of my mom. As wrong as that sounds, I definitely use selective listening when she calls. Selective listening is when you respond only to the remarks that interest you, rejecting everything else. When my mom usually calls me it is to talk about nonsense and fill me in on little things going on with my family and around the house. Most of the things she tells me really has no point and I’m usually pretty busy at the time of her call so I don’t listen to a lot of it and mostly just listen for key words that interest me and forget everything else she said right after she says it.
This type of listening really works on my side of the phone line except when she calls me a day or two later to ask about something we talked about the day before. I try to bullshit it most of the time but if I don’t remember something she gets pretty mad and says I don’t listen to her and then I feel bad. Yet I can usually get away with this most of the time.
The next type of listening is insulated. I don’t think I use this one as much but if I do use it at all, once again it would be with my parents. When I was little if I would ask my mom for something like a treat or toy at the store and she said no, of course I would ignore that response and go on straight to my dad and ask the same question hoping for a different answer. This got me into trouble. I ignored what my mom had said and gotten what I wanted from my dad which angered her and then angered my dad as well.
I know I’ve been a defensive listener when it comes to some of my classes. We all do differently in different subjects and so when someone says how easy a class was to them and it wasn’t as easy for you, you may take it offensively. I know I have never been good at biology and I didn’t do very well in the class. My friend was bragging how easy his biology test was one day after class and it really pissed me off, I know I was just embarrassed and maybe a little hurt that it didn’t come to me that easy.
Later on he asked me to hang out and I said no, in my mind I was like he is such a jerk. I know he is not a jerk I just took it personally that he thought the class was so easy and maybe felt dumb around him. I should have figured that I might be better at another subject than him and I shouldn’t take it so personally what he said because he should be happy that his test was so easy and he didn’t mean anything by it to me.
The next type of listening is insensitive, if my friend tells a story and I happen to be in a really bad mood or am just not happy with them it’s hard to see their feelings and feel bad. My friend Meghan was sad the other day and starting telling me how she lost her favorite shirt but all I could think of was that she was wearing mine and she did ask. I didn’t give two shits about the other shirt I was just nodding and pissed that mine was on her back without her asking me. I’m sure she could probably see right through me and new I didn’t feel too bad about her shirt.
For the rest of the day we were kind of distant because I was annoyed about the shirt and she was annoyed that I didn’t care about hers. Although she didn’t say face out that she wanted my sympathy I wasn’t willing to recognize it which is wrong for a good friend to do.
The last type of listening is ambushing. I didn’t even have to think hard at all for this situation, definitely my sisters. I have three sisters and growing up we did and said a lot of horrible things when fighting to prove the other one wrong. One incident I remember is when my mom got a new car and my sister was mocking it saying how ugly it was and that she should do my mom a favor and crash it. I sat and listened and took into account that she was just getting her license and would probably want to borrow it someday soon. So when they day came and she asked my mom to borrow it we had just gotten into an argument and she said she wouldn’t take me to my friends house. I was pissed and not that I’m a tattletale or anything but I told my mom my sisters plan to crash her car (which obviously we hoped wouldn’t really happen) and my mom was so pissed she didn’t let her take it. My mom then drove me to my friends house while my sister sad at home angry. Although at the time I thought it was a great idea and I was really happy about the consequences, when I got home my clothes were thrown all over my room and the fighting continued.
None of those types of listening seem to help out the speaker which is what you should try to do when listening or at least give some thought into the feedback you’re sending. I’m sure ill continue to be a bad listener at times although now I will understand there is a name for what I am doing and it’s not good. I will try to become a more thoughtful listener.